If I Grow Up I Want To Be Just Like Hannah

Technically, I did say that at times in my life. I now know that "growing up" is not a given and not entirely to be desired. I also know that while there was basis in fact for the comment, some things have changed and the comment is more historical than current. But history really does help explain the present and an understanding of the present prepares for and enriches the experiences yet to come.

And it really is experiential knowledge that has the largest effect on what we know about ourselves and the world. Experientially I know that I am more insecure than I would ever admit to anyone other than all those who read this. But I am getting ahead of myself. Jen and I really pushed our kids to experience life. This was for two reasons; first, who wouldn't want to experience the things God has set out for us? Second, as mentioned, it is the most dynamic form of learning.

One of the things we did was brook no opposition to tasting things. Our sense of taste is amazingly powerful. Each culture has unique food items. What better way to learn about this world and other cultures than by eating and tasting? This is not to say they had to eat huge quantities of any one thing, but they had to try through tasting and through tasting they had to try to understand something more than they did 2 minutes earlier. We tried to redeem a phrase I never understood anyway and referred to it as having a "smart mouth".

Hannah was born older. She has always had a steadiness which allowed her to see and speak truth where no angel would tread. This included challenging my father after he declared that he would never try some new food which had been provided him.

"Why not Grandpa?", she asked. "Don't you want a smart mouth?".

Of course what my Dad heard was that he had a smart mouth (with the old connotations). This did not sit well with him and, as quickly as possible, I stepped in to explain that Hannah had a very different definition of that phrase. He insisted on pointing out that we should have thought about this potential misunderstanding before hijacking the saying, but I have since heard him use the same line with the reformed meaning.

Experiential knowledge continues to drive many of my kids decisions. It is here I find a smorgasbord of emotional responses. As of this time yesterday, Brynn was somewhere in greater Germany/Austria, Hannah down in some ditch called the Grand Canyon, and Lars, hopefully, holed up in a library in downtown Santa Fe studying. I have never been outside the country save once across the bridge in Sault St. Marie, and have never been to the American Southwest. I am jealous.

I really am jealous. But more than that I am excited for each of them and proud. I can't pretend that all the decisions made meet with my approval. But what does meet with my approval is that my kids are adults. And, as adults, they have made a lot of decisions, and, more importantly, have largely owned the decisions they have made. Win, lose or draw, they have dealt with the result flowing from their decisions. In this moment, I am struck by the desire in each of them for experiential knowledge and how their choices have reflected that desire.

I didn't go away to school. I haven't traveled much. I get a little nervous thinking of leaving the known environment. I wish I had the guts my kids have. I wish I had followed my own desires. I wish I had traveled. I wish I had risked more not less. I wish I had the richness of experience that my children have. I have had many opportunities and have most often chickened out. I would be a better person, a person with fewer fears, a person with a richer perspective, and a person with fewer regrets had I tried more, experienced richer, played riskier, and seized life more deliberately and vibrantly. I think many of my failures resulted from the subconscious rejection of my default behavior.

So this one is for my kids. I pledge to use your behavior as an inspiration for my future. I promise to default less and live more. In particular, I will follow your example to chose experience as the primal force of wisdom. I will do as I said, not as I did. If I grow up, I want to be like my kids.